Special Coverage

Japanese sale has record price

A filly by a Japanese Horse of the Year and out of a Japanese Horse of the Year set a record Monday at Japan’s premier yearling auction, helping the session achieve big gains.

Global Equine Management paid just over $4.39 million for a yearling daughter of the 2005 and 2006 Horse of the Year, Deep Impact, and the 1997 Horse of the Year, Air Groove, at the Japan Racing Horse Association’s select sale. The price in the auction’s currency was 360 million yen, and that broke the previous 2007 sale record of 250 million yen. It also represented a leap from last year’s sale-topping price of just 66 million yen, or about $733,000 at last year’s exchange rate.

Northern Farm consigned the top-priced yearling. She is a three-quarter-sister to Japanese champion Admire Groove and Japanese Grade 2 winner Forgettable, and she is a half-sister to multiple Japanese graded winner Rulership.

The 2011 Japan Racing Horse Association select yearling session sold 197 yearlings for about $57,634,146, resulting in an average of about $292,559 and a median of approximately $225,609. Aided by a bigger catalog, gross soared upward by 50 percent from last year’s figure for 173 yearlings. The average, compared year-to-year in yen, jumped 31 percent, and the median climbed 23 percent.

This year’s buy-back rate was 18 percent, down from 24 percent in 2010.

The auction’s foal session was to take place on Tuesday at Northern Horse Park on the Japanese island of Hokkaido.